Yet Another Half-Life 2 Discussion

[prodigydancer]

Hey look, it's this thread again.

Seriously what's this thing about the Codex and hating HL2? I can understand hating PoE (stiff-necked oldfags hate everything new, falloutards hate everything that isn't Fallout or exactly like Fallout and insecure newfags jump on the bandwagon desperately trying to fit in) but why HL2? /confused

 

[DeepOcean]

HL 2 is... insert edgy remark .... Game is 11 years old, AAA gamming declined without any help from Valve on the last decade, guise. I can name a long list of way worse shooters released since Half Life 2.

 

[Gentle Player]

I'm replaying the Half Life games at the moment, have finished HL1 and expansions and am mid-way through original HL2. I must say I'm enjoying the latter more than I thought I would; I suppose it's a guilty pleasure of mine since I still agree with most of the critique on it - Combine soldiers being woefully inadequate adversaries compared to the HECU, Black Ops and even most of the Xen foes being the principal complaint - but am having fun nevertheless. I watched the start of that HL2 critique video that was posted and, though I'm sure he comes out with valid criticisms later on in the video (I've not time to watch it all right now), I found it amusing that the "long time Half Life fan who has been playing since 11 years old" with the obnoxious voice chose to begin by claiming that Dr. Kleiner was plucked out of the ether to be placed in HL2, having had "nothing to do with HL1", when the first game-related bit of information mentioned in the original Half Life instruction manual, after all the technical mumbo-jumbo, is a letter from Dr. Kleiner written to Gordon Freeman .

 

[Volrath]

Rave reviews? Physics? Source engine? Gimmicks, Gimmicks, Gimmicks! Half Life sucked except for everything that came before it. Too bad for you, but another game that came along at the same time as HL2 forever set HL2 as a superior game! The release of the incredibly shitty Doom 3 forever cemented HL2 as the winner of the contest for most anticipated FPS. While I never said HL2 was the greatest, in comparison to it's contemporaries it was pretty damn good.

I like how you keep mentioning reviews as if it's some kinda positive quality of the game itself rather than an external thing.

Thanks! I think that game is fine. There were parts that were average, but that doesn't make the game shit.

HL2 was pretty good, and it's place in FPS' is magnified by the colossal failure of Doom3, but the fact that some hold it in *high regard* doesn't mean you have to place the game down with "Rise of the Triad" or whatever. The worst that could be said about HL2 is that it's average. But "it's shit" just doesn't hold up, no matter how you slice it. The world has spoken.

Doom3 was a much better FPS than HL2 and Doom3 was shit.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

Doom, all of them, is shit. Period.

 

[buzz]

I like to think of Half Life 2 as a decent roller-coaster. If you don't have experience with roller coasters in general, the experience is going to be UH-MAZING!

But then you try the ride again, and a third time. And it's obviously not exciting anymore.

And if you're one of the fortunate few who already did bungee jumping, parachuting and wingsuit flying , or hell, even went on a superior roller coaster, you just don't give a shit about the HL2 ride.

 

[Daemongar]

HL 2 is... insert edgy remark .... Game is 11 years old, AAA gamming declined without any help from Valve on the last decade, guise. I can name a long list of way worse shooters released since Half Life 2.

There is nothing *average* here. It's either a masterpiece, or shit. Which explains why most people here are single.

 

[DraQ]

I still didn't like the game. Production values up the wazoo but sooo fucking stale and uninspired. Not to mention pandering and insulting.

This video actually explains what was wrong with the game pretty well:



Except i'd go further and argue that the game was not simply a bad sequel, but just plain bad.

I consider HL2 pretty good, but there is no avoiding the fact that it was a bad sequel.
It wouldn't have taken much to fix it, but it didn't have it.

Of course that doesn't make the overexcited teen in the video even a tiny bit right in any of the points he is trying to make:

• No, HL2 is not a reboot.
• No, Source was pretty fucking sweet piece of an engine - it looked impressive, scaled well, including all the way down to pretty laughable hardware configurations, and generally worked well
• No, Kleiner *was* a character in 1 which every HL1 player capable of reading should know, having read TFM, although visually he was a composite character (or individualized distillation of sort) of particular sort of 'clones' populating HL1 - like a number of other HL2 characters

(Ok, half of the points, he gets somewhat better afterwards.)

 

[ZoddGuts]

Even when it came out I found HL2 kinda boring, the pacing wasn't the greatest (went on longer than it needed to), gunpay was so-so and the A.I. was decent. F.E.A.R. a year later did everything better than what HL2 tried to do. I often go back and replay that game while with HL2 I just lose interest halfway through when replaying it.

 

[Lyric Suite]

but why HL2? /confused

Because the game is shit. Stop jerking off at the production values and try to see what the game has to offer objectively and you'll see there's really no real substance to the "experience". Valve poured billion of dollars into this thing and in some places it shows but if there's something money can't buy is creativity and inspiration, and this game had neither of those things.

 

[DeepOcean]

HL 2 is good, stop the lies and start the truths.

 

[Excidium II]

It's not, and neither is HL1. HL2 is just better.

 

[Campion]

I suppose if you go out of your way to boil down the moment to moment gameplay that has you doing something different each chapter to a "shitty sequence of gimmicks," prefer the NPCs who served as cannon fodder in HL1 to the characters of HL2 and try to rationalize that the physics stuff in HL2 was somehow in no way fun or interesting at any point, then yeah. I guess HL2 is a bad game.

 

[buzz]

They were gimmicks as far as gimmicks go. Literally each level had that one thing you used/abused which then was completely useless or unavailable afterwards. A good game would let you use all those new things all throughout the game.

I was really pissed off for example that I couldn't control antlions after the mid-point of Nova Prospekt. Same with the Gravity Gun, did anyone use it for more than smashing crates between Ravenholm and the final level when it was super-charged?

It didn't help that two thirds of the maps felt like glorified tutorials for the new gimmicks, and then only at the end you have a more "challenging" use of whatever new thing you had at hand.

 

[sexbad?]

Same with the Gravity Gun, did anyone use it for more than smashing crates between Ravenholm and the final level when it was super-charged?

Yes, and that's what made the game a lot of fun for me. Launching stuff at enemies is much more satisfying that using most of the regular guns, and I recommend replaying a bit of the game with that in mind and seeing how it goes.

 

[Cadmus]

I still didn't like the game. Production values up the wazoo but sooo fucking stale and uninspired. Not to mention pandering and insulting.

This video actually explains what was wrong with the game pretty well:



Except i'd go further and argue that the game was not simply a bad sequel, but just plain bad.

I consider HL2 pretty good, but there is no avoiding the fact that it was a bad sequel.
It wouldn't have taken much to fix it, but it didn't have it.

Of course that doesn't make the overexcited teen in the video even a tiny bit right in any of the points he is trying to make:

• No, HL2 is not a reboot.
• No, Source was pretty fucking sweet piece of an engine - it looked impressive, scaled well, including all the way down to pretty laughable hardware configurations, and generally worked well
• No, Kleiner *was* a character in 1 which every HL1 player capable of reading should know, having read TFM, although visually he was a composite character (or individualized distillation of sort) of particular sort of 'clones' populating HL1 - like a number of other HL2 characters

(Ok, half of the points, he gets somewhat better afterwards.)

The teen is actually pretty good, if you can stand him being a teen and a bit of a turbodweeb. I watched his other videos and what do you know, he's not edgy or anything, seems to get his facts straight and talks about the games quite indepth. I liek. He also got my sympathy for criticizing how AWESOME they try to make Freeman because you can take that segment of the video and put it in a Hitman: Absolution review instead and it would be as true.

I totally agree the guns were shite and I figured that out even in my first playthrough. The game is practically barren and the physics stuff isn't impressive at all. Wasn't REALLY at the time and surely isn't now.

 

[hpstg]

Something about the atmosphere of HL2 still hits a nerve with me. It really gives me the "the gods have abandoned the world" feeling somehow, but on a "realistic" level. All the rest of the criticisms sound ok to me, maybe a bit exaggerated (it is the Codex after all), but except from a bit drawn out vehicle segment, I didn't really have too many complaints when i played it. People compare it to corridor shooters today, while it was far more open and ten years ago. I was using the gravity gun almost constantly btw.

 

[sullynathan]

Come on, HL2 didn't lack variety in the art design. It's a bad game, true, but the the levels were fairly small and gimmicky enough that it never felt like you just went through the same shit over and over.

Decent video, I'm not sure if this guy really is a teenager.

He has some good points here but somehow exaggerates HL1 especially in the story part where he claims that HL1 is classic Sci-Fi but HL2 is not even though both premises have been used to death.

I only agree with the weapons bit and the awkward parts in conversations.
HL3 should have a voiced protag or just have very few conversations like HL1.

I didn't find Black Mesa interesting though, I was waiting to get out of the facility which didn't happen till Zen. Very disappointing.

Also, I don't see all the physics and the special parts of each level as a gimmick.

It's still weird how I found HL2 boring and dropped it when I first played it in 2008 but when I played it this year I found it fun and kept playing. It must be because I played HL1 once.

Can we get back to talking about DOOM and posting more videos about it? Just make a HL2 thread instead.

 

[T. Reich]

Same with the Gravity Gun, did anyone use it for more than smashing crates between Ravenholm and the final level when it was super-charged?

Yes, and that's what made the game a lot of fun for me. Launching stuff at enemies is much more satisfying that using most of the regular guns, and I recommend replaying a bit of the game with that in mind and seeing how it goes.

So... the gunplay is shit then? In an FPS, no less?

 

[sexbad?]

Same with the Gravity Gun, did anyone use it for more than smashing crates between Ravenholm and the final level when it was super-charged?

Yes, and that's what made the game a lot of fun for me. Launching stuff at enemies is much more satisfying that using most of the regular guns, and I recommend replaying a bit of the game with that in mind and seeing how it goes.

So... the gunplay is shit then? In an FPS, no less?

Some of it isn't good. It depends on the guns and the situations. The pulse rifle, revolver, crossbow, RPG, and gravity gun are all great imho, and I'm very fond of many of the levels. It's a good game.

 

[dunno lah]

Really should've let you rip off the Tau Cannon on that buggy.

 

[buzz]

Hmm, that's weird. I remember trying using the gravity gun too post-Ravenholm and I always felt there was not enough "ammo" for it, not enough objects for me to jab at the enemies. And then you're much too busy controlling ant-lions, making sure your turrets don't fall off in Nova Prospekt or shooting rockets at striders.

But I guess it could've been useful in some sections of the game, like during the coastal/dune buggy level where you can scavenge abandoned houses and shit. Coincidentally I think that's my favorite part of the game.

 

[Lyric Suite]

He has some good points here but somehow exaggerates HL1 especially in the story part where he claims that HL1 is classic Sci-Fi but HL2 is not even though both premises have been used to death.

It is not an exaggeration. Half Life felt like a classic Sci-Fi story, or something out of the X-Files. It wasn't terribly original but it did everything right and that's what matters, especially as far as video games go when it comes to that stuff. The game also just oozed charisma at every corner. I also like the part where he described the game as a contemplative experience because that's how i played it, so much so i finished it without the music, just so i could soak on the environments. He's also the first one i saw who understands why the Xen levels were actually great.

Half Life 2 on the other was just plain pandering and insipid. The whole game felt like it was made by a committee of people who never actually played the original and only knew about it after reading a wiki.

 

[sullynathan]

He has some good points here but somehow exaggerates HL1 especially in the story part where he claims that HL1 is classic Sci-Fi but HL2 is not even though both premises have been used to death.

It is not an exaggeration. Half Life felt like a classic Sci-Fi story, or something out of the X-Files. It wasn't terribly original but it did everything right and that's what matters, especially as far as video games go when it comes to that stuff. The game also just oozed charisma at every corner. I also like the part where he described the game as a contemplative experience because that's how i played it, so much so i finished it without the music, just so i could soak on the environments. He's also the first one i saw who understands why the Xen levels were actually great.

Half Life 2 on the other was just plain pandering and insipid. The whole game felt like it was made by a committee of people who never actually played the original and only knew about it after reading a wiki.

Well I agree, I like Xen and for the reasons he mentioned. I just don't like the latter platforming part where you had to jump on those ridiculously far platforms. Xen was very alien and it was done well ,especially since I got really tired of being in Black Mesa. My only other dislike with Xen was when the boss would teleport you back to other rooms during the fight even after you completed those rooms. Seemed stupid.

I felt that Half-Life had very little story except for the beginning and the end. Same for HL2 too. I can boil it down to HL1 just being a more straight shooter than HL2. There's less breaks for anything like cutscenes or dialogue.

Hmm, that's weird. I remember trying using the gravity gun too post-Ravenholm and I always felt there was not enough "ammo" for it, not enough objects for me to jab at the enemies. And then you're much too busy controlling ant-lions, making sure your turrets don't fall off in Nova Prospekt or shooting rockets at striders.

But I guess it could've been useful in some sections of the game, like during the coastal/dune buggy level where you can scavenge abandoned houses and shit. Coincidentally I think that's my favorite part of the game.

I see this as a non-issue at times since I rarely used the gravity gun outside of the final mission and certain parts of ravenholm. I don't believe that all weapons needed that much use for every mission, reminds me of how DOOM made certain weapons far more important in certain levels by having a lot more ammo for them in those levels.

 

[Makabb]

but but metacritic told me that half-life 2 is the best game ever

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/half-life-2/user-reviews